CJ - PRESS SECRETARY

[Lemon Lyman]

Personal Background


[/li][li]CJ was 38 years old in 1999 (The Pilot – Script) and her full name is Claudia Jean (The Short List).
[/li][li]CJ lives close enough to the White House to walk there (The Fall’s Gonna Kill You). Even at that short distance, she has been known to get lost on her way to work while suffering from stress-induced insomnia (In this White House).
[/li][li]CJ is Catholic (The Crackpots and These Women)
[/li][li]She is six feet tall (Five Votes Down), has what Josh calls a great body (Celestial Navigation), has sensitive alabaster skin, and favors Clinique City Block Oil-Free Face Protector (20 Hours in LA). Bartlet describes as a having the elegance of an old movie star (The Crackpots and These Women)

CJ's family

[/li][li]Although her father is a schoolteacher in Ohio (100,000 Airplanes), CJ's family gathered in Napa for his 70th birthday celebration (The Stackhouse Filibuster) CJ says she doesn't talk to her dad enough (The Drop In), and that he's starting to forget things (The Two Bartlets). She signs her letters to her father with the name "Claudia" (The Stackhouse Filibuster).
[/li][li]CJ's father, Tal Cregg
[/li][li]Because CJ's brothers are golf crazies, she has a niece named Hogan (The Black Vera Wang)

CJ's friends and lovers:

[/li][li]CJ was once dumped by an unnamed ex-boyfriend after she accidentally drove his Porsche into a pond ( Six Meetings before Lunch)
[/li][li]CJ and Toby were friends before they went to work on the Bartlet campaign together (In the Shadow of Two Gunmen)
[/li][li]According to Josh, the president thinks of CJ like a daughter (Lies, Dam Lies and Statistics). According to Jed Bartlet himself, CJ is part of his family (Enemies Foreign and Domestic).
[/li][li]She has a crush on White House correspondent Danny Concanon (The State Dinner), which is okay, considering he's admitted to having a crush on her (In Excelsis Deo). In fact, she has occasionally been known to grab Danny and kiss him (He Shall, From Time to Time). The President, though, has made it clear that nothing can happen while they have their current jobs (The Lame Duck Congress).
[/li][li]She is friends with stand-up comedian Corey Sykes (The Drop In)


References
"Bartlet4 America.Org"
"Inside Bartlet's White House" by Keith Topping
"Inside the West Wing" by Paul Challen

[Lemon Lyman]

Professional Background [/b]


[/li][li]CJ was a National Merit Scholar (Galileo), she earned her master's degree at U.C. Berkeley (Galileo), and she is an expert on language in polling models (and has been since 1993) (Lies, Dam Lies and Statistics)

CJ – Pre White House

[/li][li]Sometime before 1998, CJ worked for a political organization called EMILY's List (Early Money Is Like Yeast - It Helps Raise the Dough), which raises money for pro-choice women candidates (In the Shadow of Two Gunmen)
[/li][li]Though CJ didn't know anything about film and television (and considered the work beneath her), she accepted a job at Triton-Day Public Relations in Beverly Hills for $550,000 a year (In the Shadow of Two Gunmen)
[/li][li]One of CJ's Hollywood clients was Roger Becker, who dropped from third to ninth Most Powerful Person in Hollywood. Before CJ could appease him (most likely by making him Man of the Year somewhere in Vegas), he threatened to pull his business if CJ wasn't fired. Isobel, CJ's boss, fired CJ right there in the hallway to keep the Atlantis account (In the Shadow of Two Gunmen)
[/li][li]The same day CJ was fired, Toby Ziegler arrived from New Hampshire on Leo McGarry's instructions. Her work on EMILY's List earned CJ a job offer on the Bartlet for America campaign -- for considerably less money than she had been making: $600 a week (In the Shadow of Two Gunmen)

CJ - In the White House:

[/li][li]Though CJ was offered a development deal by a Hollywood player, she chose to stay on as White House Press Secretary (20 Hours in LA)
[/li][li]In 2001, CJ received the Matrix Award from Women in Communication at a ceremony in New York (The Drop In)
[/li][li]CJ is the only senior staffer who was told of the President's MS by Leo McGarry (Manchester)
[/li][li]After a significant gaffe at the height of the MS scandal, CJ told the President she would resign; at first, he reacted badly and started to lecture her. CJ raised her voice, saying, "Don't you dare lecture me, Mr. President, don't you dare do it." Startled out of his self-absorption, Bartlet talked about owing his election to the Senior Staff, and admitted, "I need you too" (Manchester)
[/li][li]The hate mail CJ received after condemning the Saudi Arabian religious police included subject lines like "Die, CJ, Die - from all of Saudi Arabia (29K)," "We are going to kill you, C. J. Cregg (110K)," "Saudis against cj cregg (93K)," and "American Lies, Lies, Lies" (Enemies, Foreign and Domestic)
[/li][li]Her assistant - and sometimes partner in crime - is Carol (The Pilot)


References
"Bartlet4 America.Org"
"Inside Bartlet's White House" by Keith Topping
"Inside the West Wing" by Paul Challen

[Lemon Lyman]

Other Facts[/b]


CJ's politics

[/li][li]CJ does not have an opinion on capital punishment (Take this Sabbath Day) and she strongly supports tougher penalties for hate-motivated crimes (In Excelsis Deo).
[/li][li]Oddly, she is the "wrong Democrat" to talk to about affirmative action (The Two Bartlets)

CJ's quirks

[/li][li]CJ sometimes calls her coworkers by strange nicknames -- Leo is "Leopold" [(The Midterms) Sam is "Sparky" (In the Shadow of Two Gunmen), Toby is "Tobus" (Isaac and Ishmael), Josh is "mi amor" (The Midterms) and Charlie is "Chaz" (Hartsfield Landing). She refers to Toby, Josh, and Sam as "my spin boys" (The Stackhouse Filibuster). She calls Admiral Fitzwallace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, "Sailor".
[/li][li]CJ's laptop quacks when she receives email (Ways and Means).
[/li][li]She tends to be self-conscious about the size of her neck (Five Votes Down), especially after she learned that her Secret Service code name is "Flamingo," which is, in her opinion, "a ridiculous looking bird" (In Excelsis Deo).
[/li][li]CJ likes Goldfish (the crackers) and is the proud owner of an actual goldfish named Gail, given to her by Danny (The Short List).
[/li][li]CJ dislikes dentists and had to have an emergency root canal (Celestial Navigation).
[/li][li]She lips syncs to a song called The Jackal by Ronnie Jordan at parties (Six Meeting before Lunch). She also walks the halls of the White House singing her own special version of I'm Too Sexy (Gone Quiet)
[/li][li]CJ once wrote Davy Jones a fan letter and he wrote back (The Drop In).
[/li][li]Lord John Marbury calls her "Princepessa" (The Drop In)
[/li][li]CJ seems to have some trouble with bodies of water -- while attending a party fundraiser in Malibu (and while wearing a Donna Karan dress), CJ was pushed into Larry Posner's swimming pool by Roberto Benigni (The Crackpots and These Women),not long before that, she fell into her own pool at home in the Hollywood Hills because she didn't have her contacts in (In the Shadow of Two Gunmen).
[/li][li]She thinks it's possible that an ancient Egyptian cat goddess named Bast put a curse on her (The Stackhouse Filibuster)
[/li][li]She likes beer but has also been known to order grasshoppers (Mr Willis of Ohio). Sometimes she and Donna go out for yogurt (Enemies Foreign and Domestic). CJ can't cook (The Stackhouse Filibuster) though she offered to cook Christmas Dinner for Leo (In Excelsis Deo). She was later invited to spend Thanksgiving with Toby, Josh, and Sam -- though there may have been an ulterior motive, since they asked if she could cook (Shibboleth).
[/li][li]Her first Thanksgiving in the White House, CJ was sent home with a 101.7 degree fever and flu-like symptoms (Shibboleth). She spent her second White House Thanksgiving with Eric and Troy -- two turkeys (Shibboleth) -- and her third attempting to defuse a possible PR problem with two Muncie Indians who refused to move from the White House lobby (Indians in the Lobby)
[/li][li]CJ drives a baby blue '65 Mustang convertible (The Black Vera Wang)

CJ and sports:

[/li][li]CJ tries to work out at the gym from 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m., and considers it "her" time (The Pilot) She also has a Life Cycle in her office (In this White House).
[/li][li]She once played mixed doubles tennis with Toby Ziegler against the President and Steffi Graf in Florida (The Crackpots and these Women). She doesn't, however, know how to play pool (Manchester).
[/li][li]She doesn't know much about sports and often gets the teams mixed up, but she claims to be "joking when I do this" (The Stackhouse Filibuster)

References
"Bartlet4 America.Org"
"Inside Bartlet's White House" by Keith Topping
"Inside the West Wing" by Paul Challen

[Flamingo]

Apart from singing the jackal, she has to direct what she calls a musical on CNN by singing thanksgiving songs she doesnt know, luckily Donna is there to rescue her and teach her the lyrics to 'We all come together' and 'The Madrigals' (Shibboleth)

Ref- Tv

[spike]

Allison Janney was once told that, due to her height, the only roles she would be offered would be as lesbians or aliens.

Not sure if this should go here, but it seems as good a place as any to put it.

[DarkHoarse]

Why lesbians? Are there no leading men over 6' any more?? Or are they 'intimidated' by taller women (hello Mr Cruise)? Fools.

[spike]

Dunno why lesbians. That's what her agent said to her.

Bet he's glad he was wrong now.

[Joey Lucas]

From BravoTV.com:

Answering questions, running damage control and crafting "truths" for public consumption are all in a day's work for Press Secretary C.J. Cregg. Luckily, her background in a Hollywood public relations firm has thoroughly prepared her for the job. Although, the massive pay cut was a bit of a shock. C.J. has a quick wit which helps keep her sane when dealing with the press. However, she has managed to get herself into more than one mess with a flip comment here and there. C.J.'s social life is somewhat lacking, due to her crazy work schedule.